another would address some insignificant remark to him now and again, but nobody really took any notice of what he had to say. He had survived his strength, his usefulness, his very wisdom. He wore long, green, worsted stockings pulled up above the knee over his trousers, a sort of woollen nightcap on his hairless cranium, and wooden clogs on his feet. Without his hooded cloak he looked like a peasant. Half a dozen hands would be extended to help him on board, but afterward he was left pretty much to his own thoughts. Of course he never did any work, except, perhaps, to cast off some rope when hailed, "Hé, l'Ancien! let go the halyards there, at your hand" or some such request of an easy kind.

No one took notice in any way of the chuckling within the shadow of the hood. He kept it up for a long time with intense enjoyment. Obviously he had preserved intact the innocence of mind which is easily amused. But when his hilarity had exhausted itself, he made a professional remark in a self-assertive but quavering voice:

"Can't expect much work on a night like this."

No one took it up. It was a mere truism. Nothing under canvas could be expected to make a port on such an idle night of dreamy splendour and spiritual stillness. We would have to glide idly to and fro, keeping our station within the appointed bearings, and, unless a fresh breeze sprang up with the dawn, we would land before sunrise on a small islet that, within two miles of us, shone like a lump of frozen moonlight, to "break a crust and take a pull at the wine bottle." I was familiar with the procedure. The stout boat emptied of her crowd would nestle her buoyant, capable side against the very rock such is the perfectly smooth amenity of the classic sea when in a gentle mood. The crust broken and the mouthful of wine swallowed - it was literally no more than that with this abstemious race the pilots would pass the time stamping their feet on the slabs of sea-salted stone and blowing into their nipped fingers. One or two misanthropists would sit apart, perched on boulders like manlike sea-fowl of solitary habits; the sociably disposed would gossip scandalously in little gesticulating knots; and there would be perpetually one or another of my hosts taking aim at the empty horizon with the long, brass tube of the telescope, a heavy, murderous-looking

piece of collective property, everlastingly changing hands with brandishing and levelling movements. Then about noon (it was a short turn of duty the long turn lasted twenty-four hours) another boatful of pilots would relieve us and we should steer for the old Phoenician port, dominated, watched over from the ridge of a dust-gray, arid hill by the red-and-white striped pile of the Notre Dame de la Garde.

All this came to pass as I had foreseen in the fullness of my very recent experience. But also something not foreseen by me did happen, something which causes me to remember my last outing with the pilots. It was on this occasion that my hand touched, for the first time, the side of an English ship.

No fresh breeze had come with the dawn, only the steady little draught got a more keen edge on it as the eastern sky became bright and glassy with a clean, colourless light. It was while we were all ashore on the islet that a steamer was picked up by the telescope, a black speck like an insect posed on the hard edge of the offing. She emerged rapidly to her water-line and came on steadily, a slim hull with a long streak of smoke slanting away from the rising sun. We embarked in a hurry, and headed the boat out for our prey, but we hardly moved three miles an hour.

She was a big, high-class cargo-steamer of a type that is to be met on the sea no more black hull, with low, white superstructures, powerfully rigged with three masts and a lot of yards on the fore; two hands at her enormous wheel steam steering-gear was not a matter of course in these days and with them on the bridge three others, bulky in thick blue jackets, ruddy-faced, muffled up, with peak caps I suppose all her officers. There are ships I have met more than once and known well by sight whose names I have forgotten; but the name of that ship seen once so many years ago in the clear flush of a cold, pale sunrise I have not forgotten. How could I the first English ship on whose side I ever laid my hand! The name I read it letter by letter on the bow was James Westoll. Not very romantic, you will say. The name of a very considerable, well-known, and universally respected North-country shipowner, I believe. James Westoll! What better name could an honourable, hard-working ship have? To me the very grouping of the letters is alive with the romantic feeling of her reality

as I saw her floating motionless and borrowing an ideal grace from the austere purity of the light.

We were then very near her and, on a sudden impulse, I volunteered to pull bow in the dinghy which shoved off at once to put the pilot on board while our boat, fanned by the faint air which had attended us all through the night, went on gliding gently past the black, glistening length of the ship. A few strokes brought us alongside, and it was then that, for the very first time in my life, I heard myself addressed in Englishthe speech of my secret choice, of my future, of long friendships, of the deepest affections, of hours of toil and hours of ease, and of solitary hours, too, of books read, of thoughts pursued, of remembered emotions very dreams! And if (after being thus fashioned by it in that part of me which cannot decay) I dare not claim it aloud as my own, then, at any rate, the speech of my children. Thus small events grow memorable by the passage of time. As to the quality of the address itself I cannot say it was very striking. Too short for eloquence and devoid of all charm of tone, it consisted precisely of the three words "Look out there!" growled out huskily above my head.

of my

It proceeded from a big fat fellow (he had an obtrusive, hairy double chin) in a blue woollen shirt and roomy breeches pulled up very high, even to the level of his breastbone, by a pair of braces quite exposed to public view. As where he stood there was no bulwark, but only a rail and stanchions, I was able to take in at a glance the whole of his voluminous person from his feet to the high crown of his soft black hat, which sat like an absurd flanged cone on his big head. The grotesque and massive aspect of that deck-hand (I suppose he was that very likely the lamptrimmer) surprised me very much. My course of reading, of dreaming, and longing for the sea had not prepared me for a sea brother of that sort. I never met again a figure in the least like his except in the illustrations to Mr. W. W. Jacobs's most entertaining tales of barges and coasters; but the inspired talent of Mr. Jacobs for poking endless fun at poor, innocent sailors in a prose which, however ex

travagant in its felicitous invention, is always artistically adjusted to observed truth, was not yet. Perhaps Mr. Jacobs himself was not yet. I fancy that, at most, if he had made his nurse laugh it was about all he had achieved at that early date.

Therefore, I repeat, other disabilities apart, I could not have been prepared for the sight of that husky old porpoise. The object of his concise address was to call my attention to a rope which he incontinently flung down for me to catch. I caught it, though it was not really necessary, the ship having no way on her by that time. Then everything went on very swiftly. The dinghy came with a slight bump against the steamer's side; the pilot, grabbing the rope ladder, had scrambled half-way up before I knew that our task of boarding was done; the harsh, muffled clanging of the engine-room telegraph struck my ear through the iron plate; my companion in the dinghy was urging me to "shove off-push hard"; and when I bore against the smooth flank of the first English ship I ever touched in my life, I felt it already throbbing under my open palm.

Her head swung a little to the west, pointing toward the miniature lighthouse of the Jolliette breakwater, far away there, hardly distinguishable against the land. The dinghy danced a squashy, splashy jig in the wash of the wake; and, turning in my seat, I followed the James Westoll with my eyes. Before she had gone in a quarter of a mile she hoisted her flag, as the harbour regulations prescribe for arriving and departing ships. I saw it suddenly flicker and stream out on the flag-staff. The Red Ensign! In the pellucid, colourless atmosphere bathing the drab and gray masses of that southern land, the livid islets, the sea of pale, glassy blue under the pale, glassy sky of that cold sunrise, it was, as far as the eye could reach, the only spot of ardent colour — flame-like, intense, and presently as minute as the tiny red spark the concentrated reflection of a great fire kindles in the clear heart of a globe of crystal. The Red Ensign the symbolic, protecting, warm bit of bunting flung wide upon the seas, and destined for so many years to be the only roof over my head.

MADE OUT OF NOTHING 1

Peter Rodright was the senior partner in the firm of Rodright & Co., Limited. His seniority was absolute, for the firm was Peter and Peter was the firm, the "Co." and the "limited being mere concessions to the fitness of things. The Many, if it ever existed, had been absorbed into the One, and that One was Peter. Moreover, he was a monopolist.

His monopoly was the manufacture and export of idols, and he lived in a versatile city where such things are possible. He was enormously rich and consistently hilarious, beautifully tenderhearted, and exceedingly vulgar.

He divided his time between singing, whistling, laughing, and thinking, and not infrequently he allowed these occupations to overlap. Hymn tunes were his favourite music, and these he would sing to verses of his own composition, "From Greenland's Icy Mountains" being the tune most frequently rendered. Had you heard the words you would have concluded that Peter was an original old gentleman.

He was a profound thinker, at all events; and his business was on a scale, and of a complexity, which revealed the operation of a master-mind. He was none of your mean and grovelling money-grabbers who exploit the ideas of men abler than themselves; he bought no man's patent; he borrowed no man's inventions; he stole no man's brains; but, ceasing to whistle, laugh, or sing, he retired with a grave face into an inner office and waited on his Muse until the great ideas were born. "Some men," he said, "put what they make under their waistcoats; I put it under my 'at." Peter cultivated the thinking faculty. Indeed, he kept himself in training for thought, and his brains were always in the pink of condition. His manner of life was austere, almost ascetic. He ate sparingly and took vigorous exercise; till the last year of his life he enjoyed perfect health. His breakfast beverage was milk and water; he drank no alcohol, of

1 Reprinted by permission of the author and of Williams & Norgate, Ltd., London, and Henry Holt and Company, New York, publishers

course; he smoked no tobacco. "Catch me muddlin' my 'ead with them things!" he said. "Not me! What's at the back o' my business? Thinkin'. What makes money in all business? Thinkin'. What's the matter with all them fellers?" -- here Peter pointed to the list of bankrupts in the morning's Times"they can't think! Misfortunes-rot! That's a word as I learnt from that young shaver o' mine at Eton though there's not much he can teach me, I can tell you. There never was a business that couldn't be pulled through wi' thinkin'. Look here! I'd bet two to one though I'm not a betting man that more than half them bankrupts are smokers. Smokin'! Pshaw! I'll tell you what smokin' does for a man. It shortens his 'ead! Breaks business up into jumpy bits. Spoils all the long shots.

-

"There was a German chap come into my office last year - same line o' business as me. He'd got a scheme for me and him to work the Congo together — a sort o' 'delimitation of the sphere of influence' arrangement. Well, we hadn't been talkin' two minutes when he pulls out a big cigar. As soon as I smelt the smoke I says to myself, 'All right, Mr. German. Your sphere o' influence'll get its goose cooked before you're much older.' And I knocked him out o' the Congo market in six monthseasy as wink!

"Yes, sir, thinkin's what does it! Look at my business. Why nobody'd ever suppose as there could be such a business. That's because they don't think. I've made my business wi' thinkin' — made it out o' nothing at all. Don't you tell me as the world was never made out o' nothing! I've read all about that. I read a lot more than many men as had better eddication nor me. Of course it was made out o' nothing same as my business was - what else was there to make it out of? And what made it? Thinkin', my boy.”

Which observation concluded, Mr. Rodright would presently hum a few bars of Greenland's Icy Mountains" and break forth into unauthorised song.

Rodright's goods are to be found in all countries of the world both savage and civilised, the only place where you cannot obtain them being the city where they are manufactured. Observe those three innocent little dots at the foot of the exquisite bronze Buddha which you purchased for twenty pounds from that unimpeachable dealer in

Yokohama. They are the trademark of Rodright & Co., Limited, and may be taken to mean that the price of production was half a crown. Or turn to that beautiful old grandfather clock in the Sheraton case, the envy of all your friends as they hang their fur coats in your vestibule; recall the reluctance of the old cottager to part with his heirloom, and the tears he shed, and the shame you felt, as you handed him seven five-pound notes; and then take a strong magnifying-glass and look for three minute dots in the lower left-hand corner of the clock face. Or take the set of silver buttons which aroused your cupidity as they gleamed on the waistcoat of the peasant who rowed you across the Norwegian Fjord. Was it not something of a Vandalism to bribe the old fellow to cut them off; and was it altogether fair to conceal from him that they were precious Danish coins of the seventeenth century? But never mind; they now adorn your wife's evening dress; and there are three dots on the edge of every one of them.

As to Rodright's idols, which were the mainstay of the business, tell me, if you can, of any country where they are not worshipped. They hang round the neck of the Eskimo as he spears the scal; they tower to a height of thirty feet in the village of Alaskan Indians; incense is burnt before them on the quarterdecks of Chinese junks; the Australian savage has one in his mouth; in the forests of the Congo, in the farthest Isles of the South Sea, thousands of human beings are at this moment flat on their bellies before Rodright's works. "Wherever Bass's beer can go, I can foller," said the Head of the Firm. No potentate of modern times has had a wider sphere of influence. Even science is not exempt from his sway. For Rodright's idols have been discovered in Egypt and in Mexico, buried under the detritus of ages; they repose under glass in many University museums; anthropologists study them, and courses of lectures are delivered in their honour.

But let no one be alarmed nor dismayed. "I've played the game fair and straight from the first," said Peter. "My goods are true to sample, and don't you forget it. They're correct. If you can prove to me that them bronze Buddhas has got a wrong line in 'em, I'll have the mould broke up to-morrow, though it cost me a thousand pounds to get another. Here, take that Greek coin and put it under the microscope. It's real gold, isn't it? Well,

that's all right. Now look at the shape of that king's nose - it's Alexander, isn't it?

no, it's one of the Seleucidæ — Oh yes, I know all about them-good-lookin' fellers too! Now then for the original — here — put it under the microscope got that nose to a T, hasn't he? Well, what more do you want? What do you think I pay the man as makes them dies? Nine hundred a year, my boy, and don't you forget it. He's a Hitalian. There isn't another man in Europe as can touch him: no, nor in America neither, though they've got some pretty smart 'uns over there.

"Same wi' my clocks. I'll defy you to find a clock as we've ever turned out wi' two styles mixed up in it and makers' styles at that. And tip-top works in 'em too. I tell you it's a straight game, all through. You buy one of my Sheratons, and you can bet your bottom dollar as it's a Sheraton you've got. And what's more it'll keep time.

"There's a lot o' hanky-panky in the idol trade; but our firm never got mixed up with it - and isn't going to be, neither. Now take Liberia. There isn't a firm in Europe except ours as can get their goods up-country into the Hinterland. Why? Because the Liberians know we're straight. Our three dots on a case o' goods is the hallmark o' purity. What's wrong with the others? Well, I'll tell you.

"You remember that smoking German as I told you I did a down on. Well, he let on to me as he'd got a cargo o' gods on the West Coast - and something inside 'em to make 'em work. Then he told me as how the Liberian Government had turned awkward and wouldn't let him land his goods. So he wanted to sell the lot to me and cable his skipper to take the stuff to the Congo under our name. After a bit we come to an agreement. He was to send his skipper to port and I was to instruct our agent to buy the goods, if satisfied on inspection with the quality for the Congo market. The minute he left the office- Pflug was his name-I cables to our agent on the Coast - 'Inspect Pflug's cargo and report; suspect contraband.' Next day comes our agent's reply: 'Cargo crooked; bottle o' gin inside every god: have informed Government.' Result was that as soon as Pflug's skipper came to port the Congo boarded him, opened his cases, tapped his gods, and cancelled his licence to trade there

and then. And from that day to this I've had the Congo market all to myself.

*

Missions!" he said; "why, of course I support 'em. They're my Intelligence Department. Look at that map." He pointed to a big map, hanging on the wall of his office, on which the Christianised portion of the world's surface was painted red and the idolatrous portions black. The great ethnic religions were represented by other colours

green for Mohammedanism, yellow for Buddhism. "Our travellers work the Black and the Yellow. Never made a cent on the Green since I started business at least not in idols. Then look at them books." A row of shelves stood by the wall. On the upper was a comprehensive collection of works on Anthropology and the History of Primitive Religions; on the lower were scores of Annual Reports of Missionary Societies. "We've got hundreds of designs out o' them books. And that Missionary Exhibition was a little goldmine to my trade. I sent the whole of our drawin' staff to make sketches. Why, there was a Missionary Meetin' in the Town 'All last month, and I'd 'eard as a collection of idols was to be shown. Me and our 'ead designer was there, of course; we always go to them things. Most of what the Missionary showed was no good; big sprawlin' things as you couldn't ship; but there was one little feller as was a real beauty no bigger than the palm o' your hand. 'Sketch him, Tom,' I says to our designer; 'there's money in that one.' And we're sending eight gross to Corea next week.

"There's some folks," he went on, "as don't believe in Foreign Missions. Well, I do believe in 'em. What's the matter with 'em is that they're not up-to-date. If we conducted our business as they do theirs, we'd be up the spout next week. They don't study the markets. They don't send out the right sort o' goods. They don't work together. They don't think. But they'll come all right in time. No, sir, if people say as I'm against Missions, they're wrong. I've studied savage countries

yes, and I've travelled in 'em too; and I tell you that if all the black places were painted Red to-morrow nobody's be gladder than me though I've a great respect for the Green and I'm not afraid of the Yellow. Injure our business? Not it! Our big profits

are not made on the Black; they're made on the Yellow and the Red, and them colours are safe enough. There's more profit on a dozen bronze Buddhas than on half a shipful of them things we send to the West Coast. Besides, do you think we've not learnt to adapt ourselves to circumstances?

"And I'll tell you another thing. Our firm's doin' more to show up idolatry than all the missionaries put together. You don't see it? Well, think it out and you'll see it right enough. You just go and talk to one of our travellers and he'll tell you why.

"And then what about the curio market? We've got a motto in our business 'The more Christians, the more curios.' When idols go down curios go up that's a law of the trade. Take them bronze Buddhas again; or, better still, the Old Ivories. We couldn't sell 'em to the heathen for more than five or six shillings apiece; and we're sellin' 'em to Christians to-day at anything from ten pound up. On commission, of course our agents arrange all that. No, sir, we've not made the mistake of puttin' all our eggs in one basket."

FROM CHAPTER IX. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE HIGHER EDUCATION

Not only the general requirements for efficient education, but the trend of present tendency seems to be towards a scheme of three stages, in which a first stage of nine or ten years of increasingly serious Schooling (Primary Education), from a very light beginning about five up to about fourteen, is to be followed by a second stage of College education (Secondary Education) from fourteen or sixteen to an upward boundary determined by class and various facilities, and this is to be succeeded by a third stage, which we will now proceed to consider in detail.

Let us make it clear at once that this third